Out of the Blue
by Gandalf3213
Summary: The 4077th is bombed. Hawkeye and Charles are trapped in their tent with a criticly injured BJ and a desperate need to get their hands on medicine.
1. So you think you can tell?

**I don't own MASH.**

Hawkeye was afraid he was going to die.

In the war, he knew that soldiers and innocent people alike died every day, but the realization that _he _may die was suddenly obvious.

He looked over at BJ, who was crouched under his own mattress. By turning his head slightly, he could barely see Charles in a similar position. How in the world did we get like this? Hawkeye asked himself.

They had been talking and laughing over some wine. Charles had come in, saying something…he couldn't remember what it was; only that Charles had found it incredibly important. But they were just the slightest bit drunk.

Then the first bomb had been dropped.

Unlike some of the others, this one had been really close. The sound had made all three men clamp their hands over their ears and dive under their mattresses. They knew that the Swamp was not going to hold up if hit, and suddenly Hawkeye remembered what Charles had been trying to say.

"They're going to bomb us. The entire unit is moving out!" he was red in the face when he said it.

But he and BJ had just laughed it off.

Now they were under the mattresses, and Hawkeye could hear his heart beating in overtime. He cringed when explosion after explosion rocked the ground they were on.

Finally it stopped, and not a moment too soon. The entire room had been turned virtually upside-down with glass and broken records and odds and ends everywhere. A large wooden beam made it impossible to get out.

Hawkeye stood up, swaying slightly as he did so and stumbling over a pair of boots. "Everyone all right?" he called out.

A matteress was pushed aside and Charles crawled out, dazed but realitively unharmed. Hawkeye sighed in relief, happy to see his friend moving. Charles caught Hawkeye's eye and both of them glanced to where BJ's cot was.

The same beam that had been covering the door had fallen on BJ's cot. Hawkeye's heart started beating double time. He and Charles picked their way through the rubble, calling out for BJ.

They didn't get an answer.

Together, Hawkeye and Charles got the beam off of the cot revealing BJ. He wasn't moving, barely breathing, with broken bones, cuts, and bruises all over his body.

Hawkeye bent next to him, trying to figure out the extent of the damage. "My god, Beej, what'd you do to yourself?" he muttered.

**Short. Review anyway.**


	2. Heaven from Hell

**I own it not**

Hawkeye turned to Charles, who had turned his face away and looked faintly sick, "We need to get this stuff off him." Charles nodded, moving automatically to lift the heavy cabinet that had fallen onto BJ's leg.

Hawkeye forced himself to accept the reality of what had happened, whoch was harder then you might think. He made himself look at BJ, imagining him to be just some other kid, trying to find the extent of the damage.

Charles was now trying to lift the heavy beam away from the door, his face turning red with effort. He heard voiced coming from the other side; low, tense voices that seemed to be congregating around the tent. Suddenly, one voice rose above the others.

"Pierce!" Colonel Potter called out, "Winchester! Hunnicutt!"

Hawkeye ripped his eyes away from his friend's mangled body towards the voice. "Here, Colonel!"

The voices got nearer still, and shadows appeared across the tent. "You all right, son?" Potter's voice was edged with the concern that he couldn't keep out.

A strangled laugh came escaped Hawkeye's lips, he guessed he was on the edge of hysterical, "Yeah. Me and Charles are all right…" his voice drifted off, and he could just feel the people standing just feet away tense.

"And Hunnicutt?"

"BJ's bad off, we need to get him to the OR. But a piece of beam fell across the door, we can't get out." Hawkeye's voice rose to a point where it sounded high and squeaky.

"No problem, sir!" the voice that was unmistakably Klinger's seemed to be moving away even as the reassurance left it, making Hawkeye look back at BJ.

The beam had fallen across the man's legs, breaking them cleanly and cutting up his lower torso. The broken cot, which now rested three feet away, had dug into BJ's chest, making Hawkeye suspect broken ribs.

A sharp tear to the left of Hawkeye made him look up suddenly. A large sword-like object had sliced through the fabric of the tent, creating a hole. Charles stopped trying to move the beam and looked at the hole incredulously, not believing that it could be _that_ easy.

A door was made in the side of the tent, one big enough to pull the wounded man through. Colonel Potter walked through it, looking over his men, his eyes resting on BJ, who wasn't moving. "Get a stretcher in here." He said, his voice barely audible.

The stretcher was there before Potter took his eyes off BJ, and before the frown left his feet.

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	3. Blue skies from Pain

**I own it not**

Hawkeye didn't even think about what he was doing. He tried to block out the fact that he was even doing surgery, something that he was able to do from time to time when the going got tough. Except this time, he wasn't operating on some young soldier who got blown up by a land mine, he was operating on BJ, which madder the whole thing at least a thousand times worse.

There was barely a pulse. Three doctors were now working out what was left of BJ's insides, not talking except for the curt requests for a tool.

Hawkeye suspected that Margaret wasn't the only nurse who was shaking, though she was the only one close enough for him to see it. He tried to smile at her, reassure her somehow, if only he could reassure himself.

Like everything else in this God-awful war, nothing was a defined. Even though BJ was probably the straightest guy he ever met, very polite and all that, he could still die. Nothing was a guarantee, and you don't get your money back either.

Colonial Potter was the only one working near the chest, with Hawkeye and Charles further down. Everyone in the room heard the Colonial's sigh of relief as he backed away slightly, just after the second hour of operation. "I think I got the lungs straightened out, but damn, that was probably the most difficult thing I ever had to do."

He didn't mean the actual surgery in and of itself, he meant the person the surgery was for, the young man he had to take apart and try to put back together. The man with a home and a wife and a kid to go back to, if he ever got out of this.

A half hour after that, Charles and Hawkeye finished BJ's stomach, which had been torn by the beam. Charles's eyes lingered on the body on the table, one that hadn't stirred in over four hours. One that might never walk again.

Charles knew that he had always been separate from Hawkeye and BJ, more like an outsider then anything. He often liked to just sit back and watch their crazy antics which somehow managed to make this whole situation just _that much_ more bearable. He didn't know what Hawkeye would do without his favorite partner in crime.

Margaret started disinfecting the instruments, trying not to show any emotion on her face but failing miserably. Her hands were shaking so much she could barely get the bucket over to the sink. Someone lifted it out of her hands and put it onto the table before enfolding her into a tight embrace.

"He'll be fine. I promise." Klinger knew that he shouldn't have done this. He shouldn't even have been there, but he couldn't stay away.

Father Mulcahy was praying just outside, not wanting to go in and disturb whatever work might be going on in there.

The entire camp was holding its breath, waiting for the final outcome.

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	4. A Green Feild from a Cold Steel Rail

**I own nothing**

In their hearts, nobody expected BJ to make it. Not after all the blood lost, all the wounds, the sheer number of people working on him for hours on end.

He had been in Post-Op for two days, not moving, barely breathing, hovering between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Nobody knew what made him decide to stay.

Hawkeye never left his side. Colonel Potter, Margaret, Klinger, and even Charles had tried to get him to, "eat something, damn it, you're not helping him by starving yourself."

But Hawkeye didn't care. He would make sure he was sitting there when BJ woke up. He would be the one who knew first if his friend had died. Either way, it was his responsibility.

Why hadn't they listened to Charles? For once, why couldn't they have put down the drinks and left?

Colonel Potter watched as the man slowly became thinner, more apt to snapping at nurses when they came by. He watched the practical joker turn into the grim reaper. He understood, of course, he'd lost many good friends in the wars he'd been through. Potter had the sense to leave the man alone.

Klinger came and went, trying to cheer Hawkeye up in the way that only Klinger could. He was close to succeeding, before he stumbled, saying the wrong thing. He went back to his tent and drafted a letter, one that would go back to the states, for Peggy, if her husband didn't make it.

Margaret was the practical one, she made sure that he ate at least a couple of bites, that he wasn't too rude to the nurses or other patients, that he was still sane. But even she ultimately left him alone.

And he was alone, for the two days when BJ neither moved nor spoke, he was alone. This was why he jumped four feet when a hand touched his in the middle of the night.

He didn't believe that it was BJ. When he opened his eyes, red and puffy from tears and lack of sleep, he was sure that he dreaming. He saw BJ awake so often in his dreams that he refused to let himself to believe it.

Then he pinched himself, and the hand was still there.

The whoop he let out was enough to wake up every patient, the entire camp, and most of the families in Korea. "BJ! I can't believe it! You're alright!"

BJ made a face that Hawkeye interpreted as deep happiness. For a second their eyes met, and Hawkeye stopped yelling, let his pulse run back to normal.

Colonel Potter was there first, quickly followed by Margaret, Charles, and Father Mulcahy. "What's wrong son?" Colonel Potter feared the worse, had prepared himself for this, hoping he'd never have to address the issue.

He stopped when he saw the two young men, both definitely alive. It would be alright. Everything would be alright.

**I dind't have the heart to kill him. BJ's the best character ever created.**

**But this isn't anywhere near the end, peoples.**


	5. A Smile From a Veil

**I own it not**

After a small party in which BJ drifted in and out of consciousness, most of the camp left, just leaving Colonel Potter, Hawkeye, Margaret, Charles, Klinger, and Father Mulcahy.

"So tell us the truth. Where does it hurt and how bad? We're all doctors here." A small noise from Father Mulcahy. "Well, most of us are."

BJ screwed up his face. The truth was, his entire body hurt like someone had lit it on fire, then chopped it into little pieces and then tried to put it back together again. Hawkeye smiled at BJ, "Will you look at that! BJ's one of our _modest_ patients. Don't worry about them, Beej. You jest tell me where it hurts, and I'll fix it up good."

"Like Hell you will." BJ mumbled sleepily, throwing a smile at Hawkeye to show that he was only kidding.

"Fine then, my stomach feels like someone blew it up." BJ was interrupted by the ever-enthusiastic Klinger.

"Well, Captain. That's 'cause it was blown up. In a sense." He got a look thrown at him by Colonel Potter and was quiet.

"That's the main thing. The stomach, and my lungs." BJ had gone from doctor to patient. He was too tired to use the doctor-speak. "And I...I can't feel my legs."

He had left his for last on purpose, because he knew exactly what everyone would say and do, and he wanted to put it off. BJ was a procrastinator.

"What? Beej, legs are made to be felt, just like certain other parts of the anatomy." Hawkeye looked at Margaret briefly.

Charles, who had remained quiet up until now, stepped forward, "Are you saying, my good man, that you cannot feel anything past your knees?"

"Of course not, Charles." All assembled let out a collective breath. "I can't feel anything below my waist." The breath was drawn back in.

Silence. Post-Op, usually the room bursting with the most energy and noise was as silent as a church on Doomsday.

Colonel Potter broke the ice first. "Well, son. All I can say is that I hope to God it's not permanent." As a second thought, he turned to Father Mulcahy. "Sorry, Father."

Father Mulcahy shook his head. "I hope so too, Colonel. I will keep you in my prayers, BJ." Father Mulcahy started for the door, trying to digest the troubling news.

"Thank you, Father." BJ called after him.

The group dissipated after that, everybody lost in their own thoughts. Margaret had absent-mindedly kissed both BJ and Hawkeye on the cheek before leaving. Hawkeye was the last to go, hovering between his friend's bed and the door.

"I'm not going anywhere, Hawk." BJ said, exasperated.

Hawkeye half-smiled. "I hope not Beej. Take care of yourself."

For the second time, the Post-Op was completely silent.

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	6. And did They get you to Trade

**I own nothing**

Hawkeye kicked the small camp stove that rested in the middle of the tent. "How could this happen?" he yelled, waking Charles up in one of the more unpleasant ways.

"Would you keep your voice down?" The words were barely out of his mouth before Charles regretted them. Of course the man would be upset after hearing that his friend might never be able to walk again.

"You keep it down!" Hawkeye yelled back, his eyes wide with anger and...sadness. Deep sadness engulfed his body and he sat down heavily on his bed. "What'd I do to him?" he whispered, looking at Charles with wide eyes.

Charles softened, letting his "nicer" personality out for a breath of fresh air. "You did nothing to him. The beam fell on his bed, you couldn't have changed that." Charles had guessed that this would come out sooner or later, and it was best to address it at once.

"Yeah, but I could have left when you'd told us that the camp was being bombed. He would have followed. He always does." Hawkeye was alarmed to find hot tears streaking down his cheeks, leaving trails in the dirt that covered his face.

"I have to go check on BJ." Hawkeye barely knew what he was doing. He was about to leave when Charles blocked his way.

"You haven't had real sleep in days, you're always running off somewhere, and you're lucky that there haven't been many wounded." All this was the truth. "Whatever you have to check up on can wait until morning. BJ is fine, you've done X-Rays―" he stopped at Hawkeye's stunned look.

"You did do X-Rays, right?"

Hawkeye opened the door and left in a hurry. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'll do them now."

Charles held him back. "Even if not performing X-Rays on a patient is a serious lapse of judgment on your part, it can still wait until morning."

Hawkeye was eyeing the door, not really listening to a thing that Charles said.

"And BJ is probably asleep anyway. His body has been taking a terrible beating." Charles steered Hawkeye towards his cot, careful to stay between him and the door.

"You know, Charles, you're right. I'll sleep for an hour. And then I'll check on Beej." Hawkeye sat down, suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue. He laid back and closed his eyes.

Charles walked back to his side of the tent, wondering exactly what had just happened.

"And Charles?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

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	7. Your Heros for Ghosts?

**Own nothing do I**

Colonel Potter looked at the X-Rays. "Just as I thought." He muttered. There was no breakage in the spinal column. Nothing was bent the wrong way, and if the Colonel had to bet, he'd say that it was all nerve damage.

The problem was that some nerves heal, and others are gone for ever. He hoped that this one (these ones?) would heal properly. And fast.

Hawkeye peered over Potter's shoulder, examining the X-Rays, coming to the same conclusion. "Damn, I hate nerve damage!"

It was kind of like a plumber saying he hated pipes.

"You never know if it's done healing or not. Give me a broken bone any day." Hawkeye tried to smile, finding that those particular muscles didn't work. "I think I'll go see Beej."

Margaret was already with his friend by the time Hawkeye got there. Suddenly, he found that he could smile again, "Cut out that grinning Pierce, and if you are aiming to make a pass at me, don't. You know it won't work."

Hawkeye nodded condescendingly, sitting on the bed opposite BJ's, "How'd he doing, Nurse?" he asked, in a pretty good imitation of the soldiers inquiring after their friends.

"He'll live, I guess. We took him off antibiotics an hour ago. There's no longer any risk of infection."

Hawkeye felt the energy drain out of him, like a plastic bag being popped. "How'd this happen Margaret?"

She tapped his arm until she looked at him. "It's not your fault, okay? That beam shouldn't have fallen."

"But we stayed there! If I'd have gotten up and left when Charles came in, BJ would have followed!" Hawkeye tried to reason this out in his mind while he was reasoning it to Margaret.

"How do you know? He could have stayed. You just don't know what would have happened if you changed the variables, but this is the now. BJ's going to be fine." She decided to change the subject.

"How were the X-Rays?"

Hawkeye shrugged again. "Nothing. Zip. _Nada._"

Margaret frowned. "Nerve damage, you think?"

Hawkeye nodded, looking down at the floor. A minute later, he felt Margaret's arms wrap around his waist, realized that she was hugging him. He didn't feel one joke, he couldn't joke about this. Friends were friends, after all.

"He'll be okay, Hawkeye. We'll all be okay."

And he believed her.

**Short, yes. Reviews, yes.**


	8. Hot Ashes For Trees?

**I own nothing**

Hawkeye felt trapped in a nightmare.

There was so little for him to do about BJ. Except for wait, but he had never been very good at waiting, especially for something he really wanted — no, this was bigger then that. It was something he needed. He needed his friend.

The only helpful thing was the never-ending line of patients. From what Hawkeye could gather, a couple of kids from their side met up with a couple of kids from the other side and decided that they had to shoot at each other.

So even if it wasn't the best remedy in the world — he absolutely hated working on kids this young, and the oldest in the group couldn't have been over twenty-five — it at least kept his mind off of BJ.

He finished operating twelve hours after he started, almost collapsing in Post-Op. Before Margaret saw him and ordered him to go to bed (getting a, "Will you come with me?" in return) he saw BJ.

He was awake, talking to the boy next to him. Actually, the kid was doing most of the talking, BJ just nodded his head at all the right times, talking only in monosyllables and wincing when he only did that.

"Hey Beej," Hawkeye sat down at the edge of his friend's bed, drawing both gazes over to him. "How're you feeling?"

Those words came first in the doctor's book. Second was "This won't hurt a bit."

BJ rolled his eyes, and Hawkeye knew that he was getting tired of his over-protectiveness. "Fine, mother." But the wince rendered the words meaningless.

"No, you're not fine." Hawkeye stood up and bent over BJ's upper body, moving the shirt up so that he could examine the chest. "You really know how to break yourself, don't you?" Looking at the huge bruise that covered his friend's entire torso made Hawkeye wonder why he hadn't seen it before.

Backing up, Hawkeye remembered why he had come over. "Your spine's fine, you know. It's all in your head."

BJ nodded. "That's what I was afraid of. And I thought you were the mental one around here."

Hawkeye was already leaving, knowing that if he didn't do it at that moment, he would never walk out the doors. "Not funny." He called over his shoulder.

**Short, sweet, and to the point. Review?**


	9. Hot Air For a Cool Breeze?

**I own nothing**

Nobody could keep BJ in bed once he wanted to move around. Not any of the nurses, not Colonel Potter, not Hawkeye.

Even he admitted that he couldn't operate ― he couldn't stand up for more than half and hour at a time, and the pains from his lungs down would occasionally get so bad that he would almost pass out. But despite this, he still tried to help.

One night, at least two ambulances full of solders were dropped off at the 4077. BJ went around, tagging all of them. "This one second...this one next...A-positive blood for this one..." he went around to all of them, checking their injuries.

"Back to bed!" Margaret grabbed his arm, dragging him gently but irresistibly back to Post-Op.

BJ looked back at the people still laying there, hurt, then at Margaret. His eyes were big, causing the nurse to sigh. "All right, you can finish. But hurry it up, will you? We put so much work into putting you back together, you can't break yourself now."

BJ nodded and kissed Margaret lightly on the cheek. "Thanks," he called, already heading back.

Bending over yet another boy, BJ winced, a lightning-hot burst of pain racing through his system. "This one...this one..." spots were blocking his vision, black and white, until he couldn't see anything.

The last thing he remembered was Hawkeye and Margaret's tight, worried faces. He was sorry he had made them leave the kids they really needed to be working on.

Another ripple of pain, more spots. This time he embraced them, let himself be engulfed by them. BJ knew no more.

Hawkeye glanced at Margaret, asking mutely for her advice. She looked just as confused as he did, but soon took charge. "He can't go back into Post-Op, too many kids tonight. Can you take him back to the Swamp? I'll send one of my nurses to keep an eye on him, but I think he just over-exerted himself."

Hawkeye nodded, "I hope it's not anything more." He lifted his friend, surprised at how light he was. Waving off a stretcher, he went to the Swamp, kicked open the door, and set BJ down on his bed. He was suddenly struck by how long it had been since he'd seen his friend in his real bed.

As he started to leave, a hand grabbed his arm. "Hawk..."

Hawkeye turned and smiled at BJ, "Don't do that to us, Beej. We were worried about you."

"Sorry, 'bout that." BJ's murmur died down as he blacked out again. Hawkeye stared at his friend. "Don't be sorry, Beej. You don't deserve to be."

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	10. How I Wish You Were Here

**I own nothing**

By the time BJ came to, it was dark. The kind of darkness that seemed to consume you, rather then just be around you. He could hear sounds from across camp and figured that the operations must be nearly completed.

He was right. A minute later Hawkeye walked in, flipping on a light. He sat on his bed and stared at BJ, "hey." He said, after a long pause. BJ returned the "hey."

They stared at each other for a couple long seconds before Hawkeye broke the silence once again, "So no more over-exerting yourself, right Beej?" it was more of a statement then a question.

BJ nodded, "Yeah..." they sat there in comfortable silence for a while, then, "There was this kid, bad bullet wound to the chest. Did he make it?" he remembered the kid because he looked so much like Hawkeye that BJ had actually thought for a moment that he was staring at his friend.

"Which one?" Hawkeye asked, stretching out, "There were a couple."

BJ tried to remember, "He had dark hair. The bullet was pretty high up, probably just above the ribs."

Hawkeye's brow furrowed. "Yeah, but that was a heck of an operation. Barely had enough blood for him."

Hawkeye's breathing became slow and steady, so BJ thought that he hadn't heard him when he said out loud, "It could be worse."

Hawkeye stirred and opened one eye. "What could be worse? The kid?" he didn't quite follow.

"No. Me. It could've been worse." BJ had been thinking that for a while now. He felt like such a burden. His friends should be worrying about kids who really needed them.

Hawkeye propped himself up on one elbow. "You know Beej, they have a name for people who have worse injuries then you did."

"What?"

"Dead." Hawkeye let himself drop back down and turned off his light, plunging the room into darkness.

BJ wasn't tired, and for once his body didn't hurt too bad. He lay in bed, thinking about what Hawkeye had said. He never did make sense of it.

**I think that's the end. There's not much more to say except to review.**


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